Livestream starting soon: Reading & processing Scott Alexander's response
So, it turns out Scott Alexander has written a response to my analysis of his original article on ivermectin. I will, of course, be writing a counter-response, but before I do that, I want to read through the entirety of the article. We should be live in about 5 minutes from now, here:
Click here to watch & participate
(the link above should have the video if you see this post later)
I want to make sure I read Scott’s piece as closely as possible, so I thought, what better way to do this than use it to test our experimental livestream setup? That way, we can also have more people chime in and help me digest what I am reading. Ryan will also be there to act as a rubber duck (since he doesn’t have much background in the whole back-and-forth).
Anyone who has followed Alexandros will find this new response deeply disingenuous and unsatisfying, but it is par for Scott's MO when he throws out his whole rationalist dogma to just go with his gut:
1. Decent steelman review of the opposing side
2. Humorous and sincere response
3. Very lengthy review of some individual points with apparent concessions
4. Brief hand waving dismissal of the strongest and most relevant points (in this case the fundamental problems with the large industry funded studies that suffer conflicts of interest and which used *materially different protocols* from the studies on IP-protected drugs)
5. Quick, poorly-defended Hail Mary (i.e. parasites, new studies)
6. Non-sequitur conclusion and declaration of *even greater* victory.
This has been an especially interesting debate because Scott is rhetorically much more effective while Alexandros has been the dutiful rationalist. I can see why skimmers side with Scott.
Funnel plot can also be due to politicized science. Big study = big money = orthodox result.
Ignoring ACTIV6 flaws should count as ignorance.